If this is your first visit, be sure to
check out the FAQ by clicking the
link above. You may have to register
before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages,
select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

Dear Donald, thank you for this hint ! One question is still remaining: why is such a query not possible with my GSE-Query? I'd prefer this solution as I want to add further copula verbs as MENW, GINOMAI to EIMI. That would make the GSE solution necessary, but I don't know how to do it.....
But I'm glad you and Mark have helped so far !
Yours
Peter, Germany

Dear Donald, thank you for this hint ! One question is still remaining: why is such a query not possible with my GSE-Query? I'd prefer this solution as I want to add further copula verbs as MENW, GINOMAI to EIMI. That would make the GSE solution necessary, but I don't know how to do it.....
But I'm glad you and Mark have helped so far !
Yours
Peter, Germany

You can do that query through the GSE, you just have to make sure it is designed correctly. I find it quicker to work with the command line than the GSE, so what I would do is make the search on the command line. Hit enter. Hit the up arrow (that should reload the query in the command line) and then open the GSE. The query should then be shown there graphically. Once you have that just edit the box with EIMI to include whatever other verbs you want.

Thank you, Michael ! That works indeed fine - a good hint. But I still can't realize that the GSE-Query should exclude verses with an def. article before the first noun. I get Mat 13,38 as hits: ὁ δὲ ἀγρός ἐστιν ὁ κόσμος, but I just want the same syntax as in Joh 1,1, that means without a forfronted article. I tried to set the intervening words to at most 3, which doesn't do it.
Do you have any suggestions ?
Yours
Peter, Germany

Thank you, Michael ! That works indeed fine - a good hint. But I still can't realize that the GSE-Query should exclude verses with an def. article before the first noun. I get Mat 13,38 as hits: ὁ δὲ ἀγρός ἐστιν ὁ κόσμος, but I just want the same syntax as in Joh 1,1, that means without a forfronted article. I tried to set the intervening words to at most 3, which doesn't do it.
Do you have any suggestions ?
Yours
Peter, Germany

Peter,

Your last message puts the finger on the difficulty I've been having. What you have to do, after the query I mentioned above, is add another step (actually two others). First, you have to create a query that filters out an article followed by one word (in this case the δέ). That will look like this:

'!o@dn* !1 *@nn* eimi *@dnn* *@nn

This will eliminate your Mt 13 passage. BUT, it still leaves 1 Jn 3,4 and Lk 8,11, which both have an article before the first noun but no postpositive particle (i.e., ἡ ἁμαρτία ἐστὶν ἡ ἀνομία).

So you have to 1) make the search results the new search limits and 2) add an additional query that filters out the article:

'!o@dn* *@nn* eimi *@dnn* *@nn

Actually you can just call up the previous query and remove the !1 part.

After you've done this, you can go back and do the same thing with ὑπάρχω, μένω and other verbs. I think that with the GSE you should also be able to introduce some kind of variable so that it searches on εἰμί OR ὑπάρχω OR μένω. How to do it, though, is another question (any takers???).

Now, my question is: isn't there an easier way of doing all this? It seems to me that it should be possible to introduce some variables within the same search so that the query eliminates, at the same time, constructions that have 1) an article followed by one intervening word, then the noun (i.e., Mt 13) AND 2) an article immediately followed by a noun (i.e., 1 Jn 3,4; Lk 8,11). But for the moment, I can't seem to do that. In doing this query in other corpora (i.e., the Apostolic Fathers, Josephus and Philo) the number of hits is sufficiently limited so that it's easier to filter out manually the ones that don't fit. But, obviously, that precludes doing a query on all same language texts, so it's not a perfect solution by any stretch of the imagination. Perhaps someone else will be able to shed some light on this.

EurÍka!

Originally Posted by Peter

Dear Donald, thank you for this hint ! One question is still remaining: why is such a query not possible with my GSE-Query? I'd prefer this solution as I want to add further copula verbs as MENW, GINOMAI to EIMI. That would make the GSE solution necessary, but I don't know how to do it.....
But I'm glad you and Mark have helped so far !
Yours
Peter, Germany

Hello again Peter,

Disregard the previous post. After looking through the help file, I think I've found what you are looking for. The important thing is doing a subquery that has all the elements of Jn 1.1 plus a definite article that precedes the construction. It's then that whole subquery that is excluded from the search. I hadn't picked up on that detail previously and it skewed my results. This is what it will look like (the query on the left is very compressed, but it's actually about the same as the second, just without the fronted article) :

This gives me, with just one search, the following results: Gn 46,34; Lv 13,51; 1 Rs 18,39; 2 Ch 33,13; 4 Ma 2,24; Ps 99,3; Sir 36,17; Mc 2,28; Jn 1,1; Ac 28,4.
What still needs to be done is adding variables for the different verbs.

Simply smart and terrific, Don ! I would have never been able to do this on my own, as I still don't understand the deeper meaning of subqueries (although I'm a BibleWorker since over 10 years).
One question: could you post the query file in this threat ? That would be helpful and I can study it in detail. Maybe other readers are interested in it as well.
Please write a PN to me - I want to give you a little present for this helpful query-file, as now I have what I wanted and I'm happy :-)
Yours in Christ !
Peter, Germany

The query file

Originally Posted by Peter

Simply smart and terrific, Don ! I would have never been able to do this on my own, as I still don't understand the deeper meaning of subqueries (although I'm a BibleWorker since over 10 years).
One question: could you post the query file in this threat ? That would be helpful and I can study it in detail. Maybe other readers are interested in it as well.
Please write a PN to me - I want to give you a little present for this helpful query-file, as now I have what I wanted and I'm happy :-)
Yours in Christ !
Peter, Germany

Hello Peter,

As per your suggestion, I'm adding the query file for those it may interest.

It was helpful for me too, to see a little better how subqueries function.

Just as a quick follow-up, I tried redoing this same basic query, but with a subquery adding different verbs, such as ὑπάρχω, μένω and γίνομαι. I grouped these together under a merge box checked for "OR". There's probably something I haven't figured out yet, but you can't seem to set agreement boxes (i.e., "at most 2 words intervening") between a word box and a merge box. If anyone has any suggestions, that would be great! In this specific instance, it doesn't seem to really make a difference, since replacing ειμι with any one of these three verbs in a query that just replicates the structure of Jn 1,1 turns up no hits (same thing in the Apostolic Fathers, Josephus and Philo).